‘Black Bag’ Continues the Fascinating Late-Career Run of Director Steven Soderbergh

After the twin financial failings of Che Part 1 and Che Part 2, Steven Soderbergh decided to take a step back from making large-scale films, and since the second film’s release in 2008, the director has largely kept his promise. Other than 2011’s prescient pandemic picture Contagion (which clocked in at a tidy one hour and forty-six minutes), Soderbergh’s films have genre-hopped from capers (Logan Lucky, No Sudden Move), off-kilter comedies (The Informant!, The Laundromat, Let Them All Talk), pure entertainment (the Magic Mike movies), psychological thrillers (Side Effects, Unsane, Kimi, Presence), a relatively straight action film (Haywire), and even a sports movie (High Flying Bird). Nearly all of these films have ranged from pretty good (No Sudden Move) to very good (Kimi and Contagion).

What seems evident in reviewing Soderbergh’s track record over the last seventeen years is that he’s out of the Oscar-chasing business. For a director who made such ambitious movies as Che, Solaris, Traffic (for which he won the Oscar for Best Director in 2002), Erin Brockovich (which he was nominated for Best Director–competing against himself in 2002), Out of Sight, King of the Hill, Kafka, and Sex, Lies, and Videotape (which earned him a Best Original Screenplay nod), Soderbergh’s turn away from films that announce themself with a sense of importance (Contagion aside) hasn’t hurt his filmography in terms of quality, but he certainly is a different filmmaker before Che (or BC) than he has been after. No single film Soderbergh has made since Che (intended to be a four-hour movie before the studio cut it in half) has cracked two hours in length (Logan Lucky is closest at one hour and fifty-eight minutes). Eight of his films over that period haven’t even cracked one hundred minutes. To put it plainly, Soderbergh has become allergic to epic-scale filmmaking.

For those that might have thought his latest film, the spy thriller Black Bag (starring a well-matched Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as married British agents), might aim for the gold statue, I’m here to say that it doesn’t, but you know what? That isn’t a bad thing. Black Bag runs for just 93 minutes and doesn’t waste a single second. When George (Fassbender) learns that his wife Kathryn (Blanchett) is suspected of treason, his superiors hand him the duty of investigating his wife. If that description sounds semi-similar to the Brad Pitt / Angelina action hit Mr. & Mrs. Smith, let me assure you, that’s where the similarities end.

Black Bag is far less interested in the spy stuff than the “what will George do?” of it all. Hitchcock once coined a term called “the McGuffin,” which the New Oxford American Dictionary defines as “An object or device in a movie that serves merely as a trigger for the plot.” That object in Black Bag is “Severus,” a nuclear device Kathryn may have placed into the wrong hands. Black Bag being a spy movie that just opened today, it would be inappropriate (and frankly pretty difficult) to explain all the Severus machinations that go on between George, Kathryn, and four fellow spies played by the fine actors Tom Burke, Marisa Abela, Regé-Jean Page, and especially Naomie Harris, ( a very welcome Pierce Brosnan turns up in the film’s mid-section, too) but let’s just say the film is bookended by two conversations over a dinner table that are full of sharp and insinuating dialogue. 

“Would you lie to me?, George asks Kathryn at one point. “Only if I had to,” she replies. Such is the marriage of spies according to Soderbergh’s smooth thriller. There are times when George and Kathryn want to inquire further about each others’ day, and one will reply, “black bag.” Simply meaning, “I can’t tell you,” and that’s that. While we get the strong sense that George and Kathryn’s marriage was state-arranged, the two have an ease about them that makes you think, despite all the secrets (and possible treason), they have a pretty terrific marriage. Dog knows, the 47-year-old Fassbender and the 54-year-old Blanchett (bonus points to Soderbergh for age-appropriate casting) sure do look sexy as hell together. Their chemistry is effortless, droll, and beneath their very cautious exteriors, genuinely caring. 

I have no idea how a spy thriller that never amps up the volume, has only one death (although it’s a stunner), and has no desire to spoonfeed the audience fireworks or even a raised voice all that often will do at the box office. It’s a tough time for films for grown-ups. The films that tend to be hits in our modern day typically involve crime-fighters in colorful underwear, action films with a hail of bullets, and the occasional animated movie. What I do know is that Soderbergh remains one of the most interesting directors working today, even though he seems to have no interest in playing the Hollywood game of making films that are easy to sell to audiences or the Academy. As a filmmaker who could do either and/or both, I find myself scratching my head while wanting to clap for him simultaneously—a thing you can’t do without a third arm.

To Mr. Soderbergh,

Keep it up, you confounding maestro. While you may not reap the box office or the awards, your work rate and results continually present a plethora of intriguing films, whose off-kilter engagement, integrity, and intelligence present something no one else is offering–at least not like you. I have a strong feeling most of them (see Contagion and The Informant!) will age very well.